


untouched by blood

by CampionSayn



Series: the anthony trollope way [3]
Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Established Relationship, M/M, Multi, Post-Apocalypse/Soft Apocalypse, borderline-Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, but not like that, references to Season/Series 03 Christmas Special
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-09 16:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20998031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: The Bomb dropped and the aftermath didn't go exactly as everyone thought it would.





	untouched by blood

_Once upon a time... in Poplar._  
  
Not exactly the kind of opening most people seem to think they'll get when the focus of the opening shot to this little tale showcases buildings half demolished and half rebuilt in much the way of Frankenstein's Monster; mist from the early morning fading out clearer than it had, doubtless, been in a hundred years; terns lolling about the river flowing clear of the muck and filth of ten years previous with no greater freight boats and litter to clot it like dead matter in one of the four open mouths leading to a heart...   
  
The shot flurries and fizzles to set and follow a plume of smoke, leading down to a homemade joint, pale fingers holding it aloft and out of the way of the pinkie twined with another, much bigger one, with rougher skin and a speck of dirt and blood under the nail. A lovely bruising reminder of why it wasn't such a great idea to try using a hammer after a morning of puking one's guts out, just so the new curtains could contain the too bright sun.  
  
Here we find two men--more like boys, though they'd deny it at almost thirty years each respectively--in bed together; one half asleep and refusing to open his eyes when he was due to get up and about no matter what when the tiny brick-a-brack clock on the bedside table went off, and the other an insomniac in all but name that was contemplating how much coffee he'd have to make the both of them before trying his best at making greasy eggs and not-quite-burnt toast for breakfast.  
  
Probably about two cups each, with a bit of honey for Jack so he'd have more energy before getting to the Clinic.  
  
Blowing out the breath of smoke he'd been holding to, Tim yawned wide and long before snubbing out the joint in the ashtray, but leaving the last of it in the wedge end for later. It wasn't much, but he'd hate to waste it when he needed all the help he could get with the pains in his legs and the shakiness in his lungs that never really went away with the other symptoms of the illness the two shared Christmas so long ago.  
  
The sight pans out as the tall young man stretches, lazy and content to bide his time, nuzzling his nose along Jack's freckled neck before puffing air out against the shell of his ear, grinning soft as he smoothed a hand over the bump getting bigger every day at Jack's middle.  
  
These ministrations were met with a kick from the inside and Jack whacking him off and trying to burrow back under the covers, one hand dangling out like a claw to point at the clock still merrily ticking away the moments.  
  
"No, no, no, I will not be _awake_. It's another thirty ticks, and until then I am a moggy you _will leave alone_," Jack hissed as well as any moggies mentioned, hand slipping back under and his whole form bundling up protectively around the little sprog; doubtless trying to get back into a comfortable position for both of them in an effort to keep them from actually waking up and setting off his heartburn, his need to piss like a horse, and another date with the porcelain throne.  
  
"Aw, wee lamb," Tim practically cackled on his way out of the bedroom in search of beige shelled eggs and that repulsive sweet and sour sauce Jack would probably try and drink directly from the bottle if Tim didn't simply put it in a cup next to his coffee.

* * *

_When the Bomb dropped, the results had only partially been what was expected of a nuclear fallout..._  
  
The open aired building the nurses had been using for Clinic had once been Tim's music hall, before the Disease broke out across the world and they'd been forced to use it for shelter against people that weren't much like people anymore, more like too far gone animals with blindness, deafness, rotting around the edges of their being and too quick to spread and too horrible to look at for more than an instant.   
  
It had been pretty bad for the world for a good seven years, something like half the population gone to Infection and being euthanized by whoever was left that could shoulder the duty and then get along like the human race had for thousands of years in spite of itself. Not an easy thing to do when most of the casualties had been men over forty, the elderly with their knowledge, and young children barely out of their prams.  
  
Not to mention the Changing.  
  
Tim was probably one of the lucky ones. _Luckiest_ ones, actually, in spite of the fact that Polio had made his ability to run almost non-existent and his lungs incapable of tolerating even that; and most of _his_ loved ones had survived. Even Sister Monica Joan was still alive, so if that wasn't cause to hope for the future, he didn't know what was.  
  
...Of course, Polio and the vaccine had been the reason, it turned out, why he had survived and Changed in the first place.   
  
The fallout had radiation and poison, leading to destruction of some of the world, but there had been something else that hadn't been disclosed at the time of the Crisis; inside the things the Russians and Americans had launched, had been added elements that scientists on both ends had hoped would temper the aftermath of death and destruction since they couldn't get their leaders to listen to reason and back down.  
  
When that news had come out, along with the news that the Russians had torn the throat out of every soldier and government agent that set the disaster in motion and the Americans had discovered the Kennedy family vanished not unlike the Romanovs long ago, the scientists had been questioned, questioned, questioned, but ultimately hailed as heroes.  
  
Still, there was really no accounting for how after the three years of nuclear winter, no sun in sight and having to live underground until the worst of the poison was over, the remaining men and women started to develop abnormalities based on any vaccines they'd taken and diseases they'd survived.  
  
Once the earth started to grow green again, the bees almost tripling in number and things flourished anew, Parliament reformed--it had to, with eighty percent of the population being female, there had been no choice as the few remaining men had been deemed too damaged or too..._extreme_ in their views in most parts of the world.  
  
_(Tim and Jack, as well as Tim's father had all agreed, if only to themselves, they were glad to be rid of them.)_  
  
Perhaps that made the transition easier for people on the fringes to come out and help where they hadn't before, even lending aid in new areas of medicine that were absolutely necessary due to the, well, _mutations_ that took place, for lack of a better word.  
  
Many of the older men who survived simply became sterile, which would have been a problem in itself, but on top of that, the radiation had a real and obvious impact on younger men such as Tim and Jack, and even others boys in the Cubs and universities.  
  
For instance, because of their Polio infections and subsequent vaccines and treatments, their DNA decided to react to the radiation by making the both of them evolve ahead of what some of the scientists deemed a biological necessity. Though so painful Tim himself thought he was going to die for the six weeks he began changing after he reached full puberty at sixteen, and though he was terrified after his body completed the change, he was never so glad to have friends and family so deep a part of the medical profession that, really, he had nothing to fear.  
  
He was intersex, in the most optimal way his biology could make him. Fully functioning penis, which he was grateful he'd managed to keep when some boys he'd grown up with weren't so lucky, but also a functioning, if awkward to get used to, vagina and uterus that had formed through the inversion of his testicles and a whole set of other modifications his body went through that science was still trying to determine the root cause of.  
  
Tim wasn't entirely sure he would be able to carry a baby to term, and was still a little afraid to try, but so far, since Jack was rather the same in his modifications, they both had high hopes for the future.  
  
Often he was inclined to take Jack to Clinic himself whenever possible, though. Even if they weren't the only young men going through it in recent times, that didn't mean they weren't going to proceed with caution. Even if the women were lucky in their evolution--Parthenogenesis, with single women and couples of the same sex producing healthier offspring _(he'd been on-call with his father when nurse Busby went into labor with her and Patsy's first; a little redhead girl who was growing beautifully and all of their friends entirely unsurprised when Patsy had twins on the way directly afterward)_ much more than heterosexual couples--they themselves knew that there were severe risks the boys were taking, with science still working to catch up with all the new developments; everything had to be taken on chance, careful planning, and not a little bit of faith.  
  
  
Here we zoom in from a widescreen shot following two figures, one in a doctor's uniform and coat muttering around the iced bun in his mouth and the other in something not so different from workmen at the docks, slouching along and rubbing at his stomach every so often to try and keep the baby calm and not pound on his bladder like the drummer of the Rolling Stones.  
  
The door to the clinic opens, and Tim's grousing is cut short by nurse Anderson, herself heavy as of three months prior, probably due to her getting closer to nurse Dyer if Tim was a betting man.  
  
"Good morning, Doctor Turner, Mister Turner," she nodded, smiling wide and awake so early in the morning, but still swift to take Tim's iced bun and wrap it in the napkin he'd had before tucking it away in the deep pocket of his jacket, almost scolding when she handed him a handkerchief to wipe the crumbs from his face and hands before he was set to his service of early rounds, "I see Jack's at the top of the list again this morning for Turner Senior?"  
  
"Just Jack, nurse Lucille," Jack teased in good nature, despite having to lean back a little as a roll of nausea overtook him and he had to fight down the one egg he'd been able to muscle down his throat that morning, "Far too many Turners in this building, sometimes I think I should have kept Smith when we married. Or at least made it Smith-Turner."  
  
This was an old game, and as such, Tim just took the charts Lucille held out to him and left for the back with his usual, "But what fresh hell it would be to use as a signature," giving Jack a peck on the cheek and heading straight to get his hands sterilized.   
  
From the notes Valerie had written up for him, it looked as though while his father would be looking in on Jack for the wretched amount of heartburn and bladder problems the baby was giving him, Tim would be seeing to Wesley Antoine _(twins for a first time, and it was starting to look like one of them was going to cause problems with how much bigger it was to its sibling)_ followed by Perry Mullocks _(who absolutely refused to even consider pain medication of any kind due to how his sister Susan was born, and had high blood pressure to boot)_. Not to mention, from what he could see of the queue, he also had Maureen and Matthew Aidoo in to see about getting some medication to ease the husbands pains, and Gary Teeman was hovering at the edges of the sitting area looking as nervous as he ever had since returning to England from Australia and it was only the second time he'd ever come to Clinic after finding out he was two months along and anemic.  
  
He would have to be on his toes that morning.  
  
Tim couldn't help the snort that fired out of him, attracting, doubtless, Lucille's scolding eye, and quite possibly the attention of both his sisters if they were helping out their mother as they were wont to do since they'd turned twelve and became as fixed on nursing as Tim had on medicine at that age.  
  
Not as though that was anything new. Some things ring eternal, even after the end of the world--or the beginning, as it seemed.

**Author's Note:**

> Needless to say, I was actually surprised I managed to write this at all, not least because my basic ability to exactly mimic the tone of the show is limited at best. I am not English, merely American, so apologies if I messed up any slang and the like in this little experiment.
> 
> Also, for anyone wondering where the idea of Tim/Jack came from? Thank the episodes about how they got Polio, because I sure as hell wasn't going to let those slide. Also, I think it's about time SOMEONE writes something, anything, focusing on Tim as a person outside of his parents and their story lines. He needs a limelight shined down on him.


End file.
